This week’s discussion involved a history mystery as we explored the inclusion of African Americans in the confederate army during the civil war. Now as we all remember one of the Confederacy’s main goals of the war was to preserve slavery so the inclusion of the people they were trying to oppress in their own ranks seems a bit redundant. Many of the ideas presented in class seemed to include logical reason regarding why this must have been. Probably one of the best answers was that they saw the military life as a better life than that of slavery or maybe the military was a chance to escape from slavery. Every week in class presents a new intellectual challenge that asks us questions that defy our modern view which is one of the many reasons I’ve grown to appreciate this class.

This week in class was intellectually engaging in the idea of what the Minstrel Show was. In my opinion I find it cringe worthy that many Americans of that time would think of this as a form of entertainment when considering how socially stereotypical it was. In retrospect, many Americans during the time of the minstrel show were not considered racists by each other due to this being a cultural norm and an ethically enlightening activity. In its early years, the Minstrel Show appeared to have been a form of mockery for the Afro-American community but later in its development we could see a change in its message. This is probably why it later became more widely accepted as a form of entertainment from the Afro-American community because some saw it more as preaching their culture than mocking it.